Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Will
Overview
An unexploded WWII bomb is discovered on a busy construction site in the centre of London. Chaos ensues as the military and police begin a mass evacuation against a ticking clock.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Bomb That Never Stops Ticking
I’ve always had a weakness for thrillers that treat time like a character—stories where the clock isn’t just a device but a living, breathing antagonist. Fuze understands this instinctively. From the moment that rusted WWII bomb is unearthed beneath a London construction site, the film becomes a high-wire act of tension, its every cut and close-up calibrated to make you feel the seconds slipping away.
For the first hour, it’s a masterclass in controlled panic: the military’s evacuation efforts clashing with a parallel heist unfolding in the chaos, all shot with the kind of restless energy that makes you lean forward in your seat. But then, like the bomb itself, Fuze starts to unravel. The question isn’t whether it will explode—it’s whether the film can hold itself together long enough to stick the landing.
David Mackenzie has never been a director content with easy genre thrills. His best work—Hell or High Water, Outlaw King—marries the visceral immediacy of action with a deeper, almost anthropological curiosity about the people caught in the storm. Fuze feels like an attempt to distill that approach into something leaner, meaner: a 96-minute thriller that wants to be both a heist movie and a war film, a character study and a ticking-clock spectacle.
The problem is that these ambitions don’t always play nice together. The film’s first act is a marvel of efficiency, cross-cutting between the bomb squad’s painstaking work and the thieves’ increasingly desperate attempts to pull off their robbery under the cover of the evacuation. Mackenzie’s camera is always moving, always pressing in on the actors’ faces, their sweat and tension palpable even in the dim glow of emergency lights.
But as the story spirals into its final act—piling on betrayals, flashbacks, and a late-game twist that feels less like a revelation and more like a narrative Hail Mary—the film starts to feel like it’s running out of oxygen.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.0/10
"A gripping, well-acted bomb-heist thriller that starts lean and tense but stumbles into an overcooked, unsatisfying finale."
Tension, pacing, and a sharp concept carry most of the film, with the cross-cutting between bomb disposal and the heist, plus a charismatic cast led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Theo James, making it an easy, engaging watch. As the story heads into its final stretch, extra plot threads, a divisive final twist run, and a much-disliked epilogue undercut the earlier momentum, leaving many feeling the film shifts into a different, latestnetflix.com argues, less focused movie just when it should be paying everything off.
What viewers praise
- Engaging lead cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, and the rest of the ensemble bring enough charisma and presence to lift even the weaker writing.
- Tense first half The opening hour plays as a tight urban thriller with efficient pacing, smart cross-cutting, and a strong sense of pressure around the bomb and the heist.
- Memorable twists Key reversals, especially the rooftop diamond switch and some late reveals, land well for many and make the story feel clever in the moment.
- Lean, watchable runtime At around an hour and a half, the film moves quickly, with little downtime and enough suspense to make it an easy choice for a casual thriller night.
Common complaints
- Messy final act The last section piles on betrayals and new threads, making the story feel disjointed and less satisfying than its setup promises.
- Widely disliked epilogue The closing epilogue and slideshow-style wrap-up are often described as cheesy or unnecessary, spoiling what could have been a sharper ending point.
- Shallow characterization Outside the central duo, characters are sketched in broad strokes, leaving little emotional weight beneath the tension and plot mechanics.
- Inconsistent tone and polish Elements like the soundtrack, some dialogue, and certain visual choices feel underwhelming or distracting, especially compared with the stronger earlier suspense.
Recommended for
British crime thriller fans Heist-with-a-twist seekers Aaron Taylor-Johnson followers Tense urban suspense lovers Short, punchy action-night picks
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsINSIDE THE BLAST RADIUS: THE CHAOTIC, PETTY, AND SURPRISING STORY BEHIND FUZE
A buried WWII bomb, a heist, and Aaron Taylor‑Johnson with that thousand-yard stare — on screen, Fuze is all tension. Off screen, it was 38 days of logistical hell, fainting stars, explosives boot camp, latestnetflix.com argues, and a box-office implosion loud enough to rattle studio windows.
LONDON SHOOT FROM HELL: ROYALS, ROAD CLOSURES & 38 DAYS UNDER FIRE
- Director David Mackenzie shot Fuze over 38 days in West London’s Paddington Basin, turning a sleek canal district into a war zone of fake cordons, uniforms, and panic.
- The production repeatedly locked off streets and evacuated background crowds, only to reset everything while real London traffic squeezed back through between takes.
- One of the planned look-how-big-our-movie-is drone sequences was canceled on the day thanks to royal logistics: disruptions tied to King Charles’ movements and security requirements reportedly killed the shot.
- Aaron Taylor‑Johnson publicly praised the London crews as “professional” under what Mackenzie himself called a “hassle,” which is British for “hair‑tearing nightmare.”
“EXPLOSIVES BOOT CAMP”: WHEN AARON TAYLOR‑JOHNSON LEARNED TO BLOW THINGS UP (LEGALLY)
- To make the bomb-disposal stuff feel less Hollywood and more Ministry of Defence, the team brought in Nick Orr, a real Explosive Ordnance Disposal consultant, to advise.
- Cast and crew went through what Mackenzie and Taylor‑Johnson described as an “explosives boot camp” — learning how explosives are built, handled, and safely detonated in the field.
- Taylor‑Johnson has said Orr’s military background and hands-on training shaped his performance as Major Will Tranter, a bomb tech who’s equal parts expert and barely-contained trauma.
- Mackenzie wanted what he calls “energized naturalism”: minimal exposition, lots of tense, physical behavior, and a camera that chases actors rather than the other way around.
THEO JAMES’ FAINTING FIT & THE TIGHTROPE STYLE OF DAVID MACKENZIE
- In a now‑viral clip, Theo James admits that during one especially intense sequence he kept pushing through takes until he straight‑up passed out by the third try.
- In another featurette, James walks viewers through the set, describing the action as so physically relentless that staying in character felt like “running a marathon with a ticking clock strapped to your chest.”
- Mackenzie’s reputation on Fuze: laser-focused and dead serious. One critic described the movie’s tone as if the director “treats the assignment like he’s the one saving lives,” jaw clenched the whole time.
- The director and Taylor‑Johnson had a rare pre‑shoot weekend with co-star Theo James to rehearse and tinker with scenes, which Mackenzie says helped keep the performances alive in a script that’s extremely lean on dialogue.
CASTING TRICKS & THE SAM WORTHINGTON “GOTCHA”
- On paper, Fuze boasts a stacked ensemble: Aaron Taylor‑Johnson, Theo James, Sam Worthington, Gugu Mbatha‑Raw, Saffron Hocking, Elham Ehsas, and Honor Swinton Byrne.
- Reviews note that movie stars don’t sign onto something like this unless they’re promised interesting roles, and the film leans into that expectation.
- The biggest shock: Sam Worthington is barely in the film. He’s hyped as a marquee player, but one spoiler-heavy breakdown calls his appearance a “Sam Worthington surprise” — his character is killed off far earlier than audiences expected, in what plays like a deliberate bait-and-switch.
- Critics singled out the late‑film extended flashback/coda — a big exposition dump revealing hidden loyalties — as a “truly baffling” creative choice that feels like deleted-scene energy folded back into the runtime.
FROM TIFF GLORY TO BOX-OFFICE OBLIVION
- Fuze debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025, Mackenzie’s fifth film to screen there, where it was sold as his most “unashamedly pure, entertaining” thriller — a 91‑minute blast he likened to “a bank robbery film sung by the Ramones.”
- By the time it hit U.S. theaters on April 24, 2026, via Roadside Attractions and Saban Films, the film was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes but stumbled hard with audiences.
- Opening weekend: about $1,004,330 from 1,164 theaters, a very soft per‑theater average for a star-heavy action thriller.
- Then came the real explosion: a 91.9% second‑weekend drop, so brutal that box-office watchers flagged it as one of the worst non-concert collapses on record.
- Despite that financial crater, Mackenzie has already teased that he’s open to a sequel, saying they’ve begun “investigating potential follow‑ups” if someone’s willing to light the fuse again.
EASTER EGGS & TONE: THE HEIST THAT WANTED TO BE A WAR MOVIE
- The film’s vibe is a deliberate mash-up: a WWII bomb procedural smashed into a modern London heist, with critics name‑checking Jean‑Pierre Melville’s The Red Circle and Army of Shadows as tonal ancestors — grim men, grim codes of honor, grim neon.
- Composer Tony Doogan’s score is designed as a synthetic heartbeat under the action, pulsing steadily through the first half to match the ticking‑bomb gimmick.
- Mackenzie funnels everything — terse performances, stripped-down dialogue, hyper-controlled pacing — into a single goal: don’t let you breathe long enough to notice how wild the premise really is.
If the on-screen bomb doesn’t get you, the off-screen chaos, sweat, and fainting fits certainly might.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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